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“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink, so we can actually get to know each other?” He’s already rising, like it’s a done deal that I’ll say yes and drop everything I was doing to go with him to one of the bars.
“That won’t be necessary,” I tell him, tugging my sweater sleeves past my hands, curling my fingertips inside its cozy cocoon. I feel his eyes on me and the sweater, a silent judgment about who I am, dressed like this.
I grab my laptop. “I’m going to head back to my room so I’m there when Gram comes back from the comedy show. Good to see you, I guess.”
He takes two steps toward me. “That dress earlier—the one you wore to dinner—it was nice. It really suited you.”
“Thanks.” I love that dress. It’s polished and chic and smart.
He smirks again. “Sure. I thought it was really safe. Very stiff.”
This man is the absolute worst, and I don’t hold back. “What is your problem?”
He shrugs, playing dumb. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I roll my eyes in return. “You’ve been a jerk since the minute I met you today. Between the pool and dinner and now this…”
“I offered to buy you a drink and get to know you, since we’re going to be forced to spend a lot of time together over the next ten days.”
“I am not obligated to get a drink with you or anyone else.”
He retreats at the words’ punch. “I didn’t say you were. I’m just saying, I’m trying, Gwendolyn. To play nice. For them.”
A family meanders by, the children searching a planter along their way; what they’re looking for, I’m not sure. Sawyer watches them pass, and suddenly his whole expression shifts.
“They should be in school, right?”
“I’m sorry?” he asks, snapping his eyes back to mine.
“Shouldn’t they be in school, and not on a cruise? Seems like a lot of missed days.”
He shrugs. “It could be fall break for them, plus an educational trip for a week. It’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
“Is that how you could swing this trip? Fall break plus vacation?”
He hunches again but recovers quickly. He forces a smile and says, “Now that would have been a great question to ask over a drink,” before turning away and strolling toward the elevators.
Day 2
At Sea
Gwendolyn
Gram is a creature of habit, so I’m up and dressed well before eight o’clock for breakfast.
I pack my tote with a book, our lanyards, sea-sickness medicine, bottled water, pens, and my laptop. Gram raises an eyebrow at the last item, then asks, “How did it go last night?”
I’d pretended to be asleep when she came back from the comedy show (and, as I could tell from the smoke that clung to her clothes when she’d kissed the top of my head, the casino), so I didn’t tell her about bumping into Sawyer.
“It was fine. I got a few hundred words out.”
“What’s this one about?”
I shrug, and she laughs.
“I thought you just said you wrote a few hundred words.”
“I didn’t say they were helpful.” And they weren’t, because they were all alternate endings for my own love story with Tristan.
